Nice try

Dear Leader wants to begin having a dialogue on "common-sense, reasonable gun reforms", which to his credit includes finally beginning to enforce the thousands of gun laws already on the books.

Unfortunately for him, the non-starter centerpiece of his proposal is criminalizing the private sale or transfer of legal firearms between law-abiding, non-prohibited individuals.  This would mean that a person wouldn't be able to will a family heirloom to a grandchild, or sell an unneeded hunting rifle to a neighbor, or lend a domestic violence victim a pistol for their defense, without going to a licensed gun dealer, filling out paperwork and paying a transfer fee of $25 to $125 per firearm. 

Even the Elmer Fudd-like capitulators at the NRA want no part of this obvious sham of a disingenuous effort:

'"Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?' said Wayne LaPierre, the longtime chief executive of the National Rifle Association." 

It's about darn time that organization finally grew a pair.

The ironic part of all this is that the mentally disturbed individuals who caused the Virginia Tech and Tucson tragedies bought their firearms from licensed gun dealers after passing all legally-mandated background checks currently in place.  How would requiring all law-abiding individuals to submit to the same process have prevented these incidents from taking place?  They wouldn't have, of course.  Obama's proposal is nothing more than an attempt to impose further restrictions on peoples' civil liberties that would be completely ineffective at stopping the kind of unstoppable and extremely rare event that is the price of living in a free society.

"Obama called for "sound and effective" steps to prevent lawbreakers from obtaining guns. A system of criminal background checks must be better implemented and made more efficient, he said."

Once again, the individuals mentioned in his little talk had no disqualifying criminal records or mental-health holds (despite their well-documented histories of aberrant behavior.  Perhaps the president should be instead arguing for stricter reporting requirements for school administrators and health professionals once such a person is identified.)  Why, then, should we waste time, money and effort improving the "implementation and efficiency" of such useless checks?